Fallow Season – Managing Fear- Oct 2008

In the U.S., so much fear has arisen in regard to our economy. The guides encourage us not to look at our current economic situation as dire, or bad, or disastrous. Instead they used the word “fallow”. The wise farmer allows portions of his fields to lie fallow for a season or two in order for them to rest and regenerate rich ground for crops without being depleted or worn out over generations of use. Thus we have entered a fallow financial cycle.

The guides said all that things come in cycles. While every cycle has its own flavor and is unique, we continue to move through the same types of experiences and cycles again and again. Just as the seasons change from fall to winter to spring, then burst into summer to turn back to fall, our economies have active growing seasons followed by still, declining times. Rather than circular, though, this economic cycle is part of a spiral progression.

Now is the time for resting, taking a break, remaining still. It is a process that is needed for the economy to continue to support and sustain us. Thinking of it as still, rather than falling apart, will help people to manage fear. If you need to take steps that are right in front of you, by all means, do so. However, the guides inform me that most of the energy and stress is not coming from actual circumstances but fear of the future and “what if’s”.

The guides pointed to the gifts that this time provides us. As the economy slows down, there’s a chance to meet ourselves in a deeper way. Fall and winter are a time for stillness, rest and dreaming. The combination of the economic circumstances and the change of season are an invitation for us to go within, review our lives and simplify. Economic growth is exciting, but it can be tiring as well as we rush about to make more money and to keep up with it. In pursuing money opportunities, we may not even stop to wonder if that’s truly what makes us happy and fulfilled. By going within, meeting our fears and finding what is most important, we have a chance to transform and rest.

Is it possible to still thrive financially in this time? Of course! But, if you’re trying to create great financial growth in a time when the energy around you is committed to the season of slowing down, success in this endeavor will require more effort and focus. If you flow with the natural cycles, you can take advantage of universal energy. Yes, it can be scary to go within, to meet ourselves and stop distracting ourselves with external matters such things we buy, our work, outward striving and the places we go. Manage the fear and discover new resources of self, a rich, deep, rejuvenating sustenance to be accessed during the economic fallow time.

Harvest Burning- Sept 2008

As we move into fall, there is an opportunity to honor what has gone before that has contributed to growth and release that which is no longer needed back to life force energy. My friend and fellow shamanic practitioner, Mara Clear Spring, and I were talking about planning a harvest ritual and the corn stalks in her garden.

The guides connected us to the metaphor of the corn and cornstalks. Among indigenous, corn-growing cultures, the corn provides food for the present, food for the winter and seeds for the next planting- basically great richness for sustaining life and new growth. The corn husks and stalks serve the purpose of providing everything that the corn needs to grow to the point that it becomes food and seed. In the fall, the stalks and husks have served their purpose. At that point it is appropriate to burn or compost them.

The guides talked about making a ritual of burning the stalks. They said that when the stalks are burned or composted, it’s a way of returning them to the cycle of life. The form is changed and they can provide sustenance for new growth. It is appropriate, as shamanic practitioners, to burn these stalks and husks with mindfulness of honoring what has gone before, the role that they played in the past and the role that they will play in the future.

They showed me how we, as humans, often hang onto our corn husks in terms of our experiences. We go through relationships and situations that are growth producing. Even things that are horrible often help us to grow and change and evolve along our soul path. The trouble is, we often hang on part of the experience that isn’t the part that feeds our lives in some fashion.

For example, in one of my past relationships, I honor the tremendous growth and I also hold some of the anger about the pain that I experienced and the unfair way I was treated. The energy of that anger is the corn husk that instead of releasing to become new energy, I am carrying around with me. It burdens my energy field and blocks the flow of life force energy. It was good anger at the time I left the relationship, because it told me where my boundaries were being crossed and prompted me to make new, life affirming choices, like leaving. But now, years later, it will serve me best to let go.

Also, as I walk my path, I find that things change. Relationships, activities and ways of spending my time that once provided great fulfillment, now lack the same power to complete me. I’ve outgrown certain things and it’s necessary to let go and make space for new. For instance, years ago I sang in a Celtic folk band call the Wild Oats. It was wonderful – yet at some point it became less fulfilling and wasn’t feeding me in the same way. In releasing that piece of my life, I saw how it had helped me to grow to where I could begin my kissing quest. Now the kissing quest is mostly over (I occasionally make exceptions) and the book about it is about to be born.

This fall, I and the guides, invite you to engage in a ritual of releasing your corn husks. Consider what anger and bitterness you might still be carrying about the past. Consider what relationships or activities might be complete for you. Write about it and find the ways that the experience as a whole helped you to grow, learn or become stronger. Figure out what piece of the experience serves you in a positive, peaceful way today and affirm that you are keeping that piece. Then burn the writing, asking spirit to help transmute back to universal life force energy, the energy that you carry from the experience that is no longer needed. I recommend doing this outside, inviting the harvest goddess to oversee your efforts, and choosing one of the nights close to the full moon. The most important thing is to do this in a way that honors the experiences and things that went before.

Unwinding Fear- Aug 2008

The trouble with gas prices rising and the other perceived economic woes, according to my guides, is that they create fear. Most people are more strongly affected by their fears about future scarcity than what’s happening today. For those of us who are energetically sensitive or empathic, we’re not only vulnerable to our own 3am “what if’s”, but also those of the people around us.

I find personally once I get stuck in fear, I begin resonating to the vibration of others who are feeling that same fear. Once that energy circuit gets set up, it can be very challenging to shift my own vibration out of that pit.

Our perceptions and beliefs have a significant impact on how events unfold. Where we might look at gas prices with dismay, we could equally well look with optimism at the water fuel cells that are being developed and know that the force of capitalism will carry us towards this sustainable outcome. (In fact, one of my students was told in a journey during class about a year ago that in the future we would get fuel from water.) The people who are most vulnerable to being caught up in the “fear fields” of others are often the most powerful at manifesting according to their intentions and beliefs.

There’s an invitation to join those who are choosing to send their energy to deliberately vision and support gentle Earth changes and ease of transformation. These people hold the vision of the highest and best outcome for humanity and the planet. This is part of the reason for my choice not to engage with doomsday stories. Instead, I strive to hold compassion for the stress that people feel in the change and see those stories as the product of the fears that come with change- just like the fear around the year 2000. I remember hearing an engineer I was working with talk about pulling all his money out of the bank for 2000 and how many people stockpiled canned goods.

Whether that invitation to vision a graceful future is right for you to accept or not, you can help ease your fears of money scarcity and other dire problems by holding an intent not to feel the collective fear. This can take the form of asking your guides to shield you in such a way that this vibration is filtered out of the energy that reaches you. You can do practices like Tonglen to help transmute the energy for everyone by transmuting it in yourself. You can imagine yourself in a translucent blue egg for protection. In working with energy, everything originates with intention, so simply having a clear intention not to feel other people’s fear or take on their doomsday stories will often provide immediate relief.

Triggered! June 2008

At this time, people and circumstances have a more powerful potential than usual to trigger the pain of whatever is unhealed in us. Whatever painful, uncharitable things we secretly believe of ourselves, whatever we’re ashamed of, whatever criticism we heard as a child and still hold onto, whatever shadow parts are unembraced, all of these are waiting to be activated by the people around us. It’s easy to get hurt, offended, and caught up in a power struggle or three almost the moment we step out the door in the morning and often before.

Because the experience of having your ouchy places forcefully called to your attention is so intense, normally spiritual and balanced people often feel overwhelmed in these moments. So, my guides offered some advice for dealing with these moments when someone has triggered a strong, unpleasant emotional reaction.

The guides are calling our attention to what happens on the energetic level. When we have an “ouch” moment, where we’re sucking air, trying not to cry, or wanting to scream at someone, or even just grumpy and offended at a low level, we often leap to making ourselves bad for our reaction or perceived overreaction and/or the other person bad for whatever action really pushed our buttons.

The guides showed me that this energy of blame and condemnation releases an energetic cloud that we get stuck in. The thought that someone is wrong or bad or to blame creates this black fog around us that keeps us cycling the painful energy again and again, holding in the pain and reactivating it, long after it would have cleared on its own. The triggers will happen, but the thought of blame that follows keeps us energetically bound to that moment.

I remember one day when a neighbor was playing a loud stereo. My boyfriend at the time when to knock on the door and ask him to turn it down and the neighbor was loud, threatening and profane in his response. A few weeks later, the neighbor approached my boyfriend at the store and apologized. At the time of the incident, he had just learned of his sister’s unexpected death. All the stories that our neighbor was selfish, inconsiderate and bad fell away in the face of seeing more of the picture.

So, as much as you can at the present moment, suspend blame and put your attention onto taking care of yourself and transmuting the energy. If we steer our thoughts away (even for just a little while) from taking action and assigning blame, we create a great healing opportunity. These triggers are great gifts that open our deepest wounds and provide a profound opportunity to use the strength and intensity of the emotion for clearing, healing and release. At the same time, in that moment, when it hurts, it’s hard to feel that there is a gift.

Here are some suggestions for transmuting: You can scream your anger and pain into a rock, with the intent of giving it to the earth to transmute. You can call on guides to help. Dolphins are available to help smooth things with transpersonal issues. Little brown men from the fairy realm have offered to help carry away the painful energy that we release. Star Beings help clean and clear energy and raise the vibration. You can send cords into the earth or up to the sun to give the energy a place to flow. Having a good screaming and crying fit always seems to help and move the energy fast.

The simple act of talking to a friend can help, especially if you say there’s an intent to transmute and avoid being right, getting them on your side, or blaming. Hugging a tree, visualizing a river washing through you, going outside, and breathing into the pain are all good. Movement and exercise are wonderful ways to move energy.

Many of us know intellectually that other people’s actions aren’t personal, but when your wound has been activated (and most of us have unhealed wounds somewhere or other), it’s hard not to take things personally. Be patient with yourself and honor your small steps. It’s likely that throughout our lives, no matter how much we grow and evolve, we will experience things that trigger us. But, with transmuting and spiritual practices in place, instead of just having wounds activated, we can also heal and release them. Some kinds of pain are buried so deeply that we can’t release it from our bodies, our energy fields and our souls without the activation of someone pushing our buttons.

Space Clearing and Protection- May 2008

My guides have been talking a lot lately about creating energetically clear and protected spaces in our homes. For energetically sensitive people, having your home protected from the random flow of other people’s energy, issues and emotions makes a huge difference. Having a safe, psychically quiet space can be key in being able to manage the noise and chaos of the larger world.

One of the challenges of being energetically sensitive is that your environment affects you strongly. If you’re around angry or agitated people, you can feel their emotions as though they were your own, running down and wearing out your own emotional well being. Sensitivity is a great gift for a healing practitioner, but being an empath doesn’t mean you know how to protect yourself from the effects of other people’s energy.

There are many techniques for warding and protecting your space. Basically all of them come down to using your intent to create a protective barrier that keeps out energy from the world that doesn’t serve, while still allowing life force energy, love and light to flow in. You can do this by visualizing a bubble around your space. You can ask your guides for help. There are many books available and articles on the web with detailed instructions, or you can have another person ward your home. You’ll likely find this will allow you to sleep better, have greater emotional balance, and feel more solid in yourself whether you’re home or not. It gives those empath circuits a rest if you make your home peaceful.

Once your space is warded, doing regular space clearing is also very helpful. As we go through things, we release old energy. You can use sage, dragon’s blood, visualization, sound, or a number of other techniques for clearing space. You can also contact me or Mara for help with clearing and warding your home, if you feel like you need some extra assistance. Our class on May 8th will include information about space clearing.

However you approach space clearing and protection, the guides say that now is a time to be more mindful of this part of your spiritual practice.

Star Beings- April 2008

One of the things I connected with even more strongly in Hawaii is the role that Star Beings are playing at this time. They are traveling here and awakening to assist humanity in the vibration changes that are happening. Just as your power animal supports you in the physical world, Star Beings support your energetic aspect. There are a number of ways to invite in your personal Star Being. You can attend the class. You can do a one issue reading and I’ll locate your Star Being for you. You can simply call this being and invite it to walk with you.

Having a Star Being will strengthen your personal energy shields, protect you from random energy, and smooth the way life lessons come in. They protect you and others form the accidental (and deliberate) misuse of energetic gifts. Since connecting with my Star Being, I’ve found it easier to deal with crowds and have found that manifestation happens even more easily.

Follow your Heart Through the Fear- Feb 2008

This is moment on earth is a time when it’s easy to feel fear, for a variety of reasons. Astrologers report intense planetary influences, the news talks about consumer spending being down and the stock market falling. The challenge with fear is that when we are caught in it, it saturates our field and makes it impossible to hear our guides. We cry out for help, but with the fear vibration, we can’t hear the answers. Fear is not such a bad thing, if we keep the feeling flowing and cycling along with other emotions. The trouble is that humans have a knack for feeling fear then avoiding it with spending, drinking, overthinking, etc, so it is felt at a low level all the time, avoided, and not fully processed.

Right now it is espeically important to find moments when we are clear of fear to hear and connect with our deepest truth, our hearts, our higher selves, our guides. We can get there by going up or down. We can rise out of fear, walking up the vibrational scale, connecting with nature, trees, using meditation. Or we can go down though fear to the peace below by sitting with it, allowing the feeling to get bigger, staying with it, until we breathe through to what’s underneath. Detailed, “how to” manuals for this kind of journey into and through fear can be found in the works of Pema Chodron on Tonglin or Thich Nhat Hanh.

The point is, now, more than ever, it is important to feel the guiding compass of our soul path and heart wishes. As the outside world gets crazier, it becomes more and more of an unstable foundation to base well-being solely on the material world. Ideally, we learn to move out of fear, allowing ourselves to make choices about our life, energy and endeavors with discernment, selecting paths that bring us towards fulfillment of our souls.

Shamanic Hygiene- Dec 2007

There’s a lot going on right now. My guides show me pictures of circles spinning with old themes of energy, the turning of the planets stirring up deep issues and our interpersonal connections getting more complicated than usual on the energetic plane.

My guides say that just as we brush our teeth at regular intervals for good dental hygiene, good energetic hygiene is extra important right now. Even if I only spend a few minutes, my guides say it is important to scan my energy field for other people’s energy and energetic cords and to clear my chakras at least once a day. This kind of process is always a good idea, but right now, with all the energy stirred up, it is especially easy to get depleted when our energy isn’t clear.

For example, I went to see the Christmas lights up at Del Mar. I was with people I love and so, even though the wait was about an hour, I was prepared to have a perfectly pleasant time. I didn’t consider that people in the other cars might be angry, frustrated, and upset about the wait. I began to feel these emotions and spent much of that hour working with myself to try to shift what I believed was my own frustration.

It wasn’t until a later conversation with my guides that I realized that I was feeling other people’s emotions, not my own. While I’m willing to do the work of processing my own shadow emotions, I am not prepared to process everyone else’s emotions. My guides showed me that a simple intent and request for shielding would have changed the experience.

If you have your own ways of shielding, clearing, etc, the guides say those are fine, just remember to do it. For those who aren’t sure how to do this, the guides offer some suggestions. When you’re in the shower state your desire to have all unhelpful energy washed away and imagine that as the water runs over you, it cleans unhelpful energy as well as dirt. Stand with your back against a tree and imagine that the tree connects your energy to heaven and earth, just as the roots go to earth and the branches to the sky. When you feel the need for protection, imagine yourself in a blue egg or picture dolphins swimming around you, creating a bubble of still, protected energy.

Fire! Nov 2007

As most of you are aware, San Diego recently had a very intense fire experience, transformative for all of us. My guides suggested I share some of my experiences and awareness from a shamanic perspective.

They explained that this fire was very much meant to be; it is part of the natural cycle, a clearing and cleansing. Although it may feel as though it were a punishment of some sort, it wasn’t about punishing people. As humans it is natural place the focus on ourselves and the fires personally, yet this huge land change was much bigger than us and would have occurred whether or not we were here. The guides showed me how star seeds were planted in the ash – something I’ll write more about another time.

In one shamanic journey, my guides gave me some of the ash to use on stubborn constructions. For example, in family systems I often see cords and structures related to family pain and themes (domestic violence, mothers and daughters not connecting, father is always right). It’s hard for the individual to release and heal an issue that is held by an entire family system. My guides showed me how a small amount of the ash, sprinkled on these constructions, will clear them away instantly and effortlessly, allowing the individuals the freedom to heal.

The time during the fires was very much about holding space and letting the guides work through me. I found that I was tired and still during that time. In San Diego, there’s a great flow and flux of energy with many people and many things to focus on. It is a strange and intense experience to have nearly three million people focused on the same thing at the same time. Nearly 25% of the people in San Diego county were evacuated at some point during the fires. I found myself called to help transmute the fear and pain that people were feeling. As in the crest and cedar fires of 2003, I am aware of the gentleness. These fires were huge, yet the loss of life was very small, we lost things, not lives.

My guides want to speak to and honor all those who held space during the fires, consciously or unconsciously. It’s easy to measure the service of those who put out the fires, who donated or cared for those evacuated. It’s harder to measure an act of service that comes from simply holding oneself still and quiet and allowing our guides and our unconscious aspect to work in the world. We are all connected in spirit, through our higher selves, but with the veils of separation, our conscious minds don’t see that. Yet in human form, we have the opportunity to anchor healing in space and time and these fires were very present in space and time. The prayers, good intent, and simple stillness that we offered were deeply important, my guides tell me. It’s part of why the high winds that were predicted to last through Thursday ended Monday night.

As I held space, I often encountered the thought that I should do more- if I was going to sit at home, I should clean house, write articles, work on my books. Yet my body, my guides, and my higher knowing all told me that I was tapped out with the ways that I was already holding space. All those who live in San Diego and all those who held San Diego in your prayer and intentions had a part to play in this experience. The fire was natural and important. That so many homes were spared, that so many lives were protected and saved, that so many animals were cared for all reflect the acts of service, in the physical and non-physical worlds.

Directing Power- Sept 2007

This month my guides are suggesting I share a piece of my personal journey.

A few years ago, I was going on a camping trip. My period is extremely regular and I knew I was going to start while camping. I spent weeks wishing my period would just hold off. It did then the next month didn’t start at all. I realized that I had stopped my cycle by telling my body, “Don’t bleed, Don’t bleed”. It took me a couple of months to reverse that energy, saying, “It’s okay, flow naturally.”

Another time I had a thought that life was too hard, that I didn’t want to be here. I had a head cold at the time. A week and a half later, I was still sick, despite all the resting, herbs, and such. Usually I get well very quickly. My guides told me that the power of the thought of not wanting to be here, fleeting as it had been, was still active and I needed to cancel, renounce and delete it in order to tap into my full healing ability. I needed a strong, clear life wish in order to heal quickly and fully from my illness.

My awareness of the immense power that we have to impact our own bodies with our thoughts and intent has become very alive for following a recent experience. It started with some images in dream and journey of blood pouring down my legs. I did a shamanic journey that took me to a past life. I was struggling to give birth and failing. It was a long, horrible, painful labor. I was dying as was the baby and I was out of my mind in pain. At that point, I had turned all my power, all my intention inward against my body. I shredded my body energetically and ingrained a deep loathing for being female. This lifetime was locked away in a deep, hidden place. The energy was too intense, painful and damaging to be opened up until I was fully able to heal it.

In the journey, with the past me, I was able to hold space for a different outcome. I healed the soul of the child, my body in that lifetime and held everything in light. It allowed my former self to actually give birth to the child with ease. When the baby boy was laid in my arms, I (both myself in this lifetime and myself in that other lifetime) began to cry. He was beautiful and perfect. After I’d finished weeping, the former me and the baby went to the light together. Within my current body, I felt the energy lift out of my body like smoke and clear away. It was one of the most intense shamanic experiences I’ve had and when my period came, a few weeks later, it put me into a major detox mode and knocked me flat. My guides said that the energetic misuse of power against myself from that other lifetime was clearing fully out of my energy field and releasing.

Out of this experience came the awareness that as we come into power, we don’t need to be afraid of what people and energies outside ourselves will do to us, we need to be mindful of what we do to ourselves. As we become Reiki healers, shamanic practitioners, good at manifestation, we can’t afford to use our power against ourselves. We can’t afford to dislike our bodies or say unkind things to ourselves.

I’ve seen this with several clients. One person was placing himself under constant psychic attack with negative thoughtforms and self-criticism; the combination of self-hatred and a great deal of shamanic power was a devastating combination. Another client had a deep wound around not feeling beautiful. She told me all her story about how others had made her feel this way. What the guide showed me was how she was lacerating and tearing up her own energy field with these thoughts.

Now, as you apply this, don’t beat up on yourself for beating up on yourself. It is a call to learn to be kinder to ourselves and a reminder that the more powerful we become, the more important it is to make sure we are using our power in the way that we intent, in alignment with our highest and best.

Dolphin Medicine- June 2007

While visiting the Big Island of Hawaii, I had the opportunity to swim with hundreds of wild dolphins. I watched how they played and interacted with each other and how they wove in and out of connecting with and acknowledging the humans who came into their waters. At one point I sent them an image of how happy I would be surrounded by dolphins and within moments they were on all sides of me. Please note, crying while wearing a mask and snorkel presents some difficulties.

Dolphins are creatures that live very much in the moment. They are social beings. Their skin is almost frictionless allowing them to move swiftly through the water. For me, Dolphin Medicine is about finding the most joyful expression of each moment, living fully in the moment, and letting energy that doesn’t serve, especially other people’s energy, just slide effortlessly away.

During this same time in Hawaii, I became aware of how many people are having their shadow stuff stirred up around the pain of feeling left out, not included, not seen, not loved, unacknowledged. As these wounds get activated in the present, there’s an opportunity to heal the deeper wounds from the past.

Dolphin energy is perfect for this. When dolphins feel like they need more attention, they turn on their backs and flap their tails. The dolphins in the area surround them and touch them, rubbing up against them. It’s a huge love fest.

So, I invite you, next time you are feeling unloved, not seen, not valued, or rejected to call upon the dolphin energy. My dolphin guides have told me that those who choose to work with this energy will have a personal dolphin power animal come into relationship with them. The spirit dolphins are available at this time to assist humanity in releasing our old wounds of separation. Just ask for the download or lay on your back and kick your legs.

Mindful Downtime- April 2007

The energy of the world is such that karma and energetic weight can simply be removed. Not processed, not worked through, but merely removed by our guides and higher self. There is a tremendous opportunity to allow ourselves to simply become lighter and to change our vibration and energy bodies without needing to seek a whole healing process.

We can juice up and strengthen the process by inviting our guides to work on us in this way, to clear away the energy and patterns that no longer serve. But even without the conscious intent, the flow of energy is tending to simply remove old, unhelpful energy and patterns. This process is wonderful but our physical bodies and energy fields are much occupied processing the healing and releasing that is happening. It’s part of why so many people are sick right now.

The message from the guides this month is about mindful downtime. When you wake up tired or feel like you don’t want to do anything, honor that feeling as much as possible. Take naps when you can, let the non-critical stuff slide for the moment. There’s a huge amount of work going on and it is deeply valuable. Our part is to nurture ourselves and rest so that our bodies can catch up.

Freedom to Choose- Feb 2007

My guides gave me a new and deeper understanding of free choice this month. It’s easy for me to get extremely concerned with making the “right” choice- shall I have the ham or turkey sandwich today? The ham is yummier to me but the turkey might be better for my body. Body, what do you think? Guides, what do you suggest? What will muscle testing tell me? It makes my guides lovingly laugh at me.

I had a major life choice to make recently. With this one, I had the strong knowing that if I went the way my heart was leaning, it would take me down a different path than the one I had planned on before I incarnated. My guides kept saying it’s free choice, either path is fine, but I was deeply concerned with the idea of choosing to release something that I had planned to experience this lifetime.

I asked about the old plan and what my guides told me is that the current, human me is in a much better place to make major life choices than the unincarnated self had been. The guidance of my heart, what truly fits for me now, and who I am today weren’t things I could fully understand before I got here. There’s wisdom and knowledge in the human experience that isn’t available to those not in a physical form.

I included this story of mine because I spend so much time asking about what I “should” do next and it’s one of the questions that I get asked most often to journey on for people. We don’t need our guides to tell us where our heart is leading. We just need space and tools to get quiet within ourselves to listen to the voice under the fears and busyness in order to determine what we most want. Shamanism is one of those tools. Therefore, I invite you to choose and if you find your choice doesn’t serve, I invite you to choose again.

Shamanic Advice for the New Year- Jan 2007

Right now as much of the world celebrates the New Year, there are two energies in play, according to my guides. There is the sparkly, high vibration energy of new potentials, new possibilities. The other major energetic theme is people coming into the New Year already feeling behind, stress, and weighed down by the mundane. Many people are feeling stuck or overwhelmed.

My guides recommend bringing the sparkling energy into the heavy, frustrating, mundane situations. They show it like pulling down a burst of stars into your environment. The energetic effect of doing this is like being able to rise over the stopped traffic and fly along to your chosen destination above the other stopped cars.

As with so many shamanic things, the key to this is your intention. If you can stop, take a breathe and visualize and ask for this sparkly energy, your desire and intent create a conduit for the energy to flow into your given situation. It will lighten things up and create opportunities for magical, positive outcomes.

Finding Cozy Goodness- Dec 2006

My guides say that many of us approach the holiday season as through we were crossing a field of obstacles. It feels like a long, barren journey and there are landmines around us. Even if we don’t personally feel this way about the season, the collective idea can impact us as we drive on the freeway or walk into a store. In the United States depression, suicide, mental breakdowns and accidents all go way up around Christmas time.

Now is a good time to be especially mindful of what energy we’re taking on from others. Take salt baths and ask your guides to help you clear your energy field after any shopping excursion. Be mindful of when you are stepping out of integrity with your own wants and needs to please another. The guides are inviting us to make this holiday season about receiving. Really tune into opportunities to receive from the universe around you and feel into the gratitude when that does happen. This month has the potential to be restful and rejuvenating in that some of the more intense astrological aspects have passed.

Winter is a time to plan and dream so make a wish list for all the things you would like the universe to bring you in the New Year. Now is the time to fantasize and dream. Later in the winter you can plan and in spring you begin to do. When you start to feel overwhelmed, create some quiet time and ask your guides to connect you to the cozy, wonderful aspects of this time.

Finding Grace and Ease- Nov 2006

Right now five planets are in Scorpio and mercury is retrograde. Translated, this means that the energy is extremely intense and runs very deep. Our deepest, darkest emotions are being stirred up and are coming forward with great intensity. All the dark, hidden brooding aspects are coming out. Quarrels are being sparked, tempers are running high, and many people just feel deep sadness without knowing why.

If you can own your darkness and resist the need to project it onto others, this can be a time of powerful growth. Be very aware of how you judge and condemn others during this time. There’s a powerful chance to find each thing you hate in others within yourself and allow it and love yourself.

For example, if I am feeling rage that someone cut me off on the freeway, I might find cutting other people off on the freeway within myself (I have my oblivious driving moments) and forgive myself for that and love myself knowing that I do cut people off on the freeway. If I feel I’m being judged unfairly, I can find how I judge unfairly and embrace and allow my judgmental self. It doesn’t mean that it’s okay to hit someone over the head with a baseball bat, but it’s useful to find within myself that desire and not condemn myself for having it. After all, that which we resist persists.

My guides say now is an excellent time for a sacred journey within. It is the perfect time for vision quests, sweat lodges, spiritual retreats, shamanic journeys and for staying home with yourself. In this transition and shift, we will experience it with the most grace and ease if we pull our energy back and go within, rather than being out and busy in the external world. If we pull back from the world for a little while, we have the chance to reemerge and be awed by the beauty and magic of the world that has changed and grown along with us.

Guidance for the Change of Season- Oct 2006

This month my guides are pointing out the change in season. They encourage us to take note of it and connect to the changes, even if we are living in a place such as San Diego where the changes are subtler. They say that we will benefit from taking a moment, an hour, or a day to tune into the changes in the energy and ask that our personal energy fields align with the shift in season. For those of us moving into fall and towards winter, it is a time to begin planning downtime and completing whatever activities are needed to ensure a quiet, replenishing winter. We’re coming up on a time to rest and dream and vision the future.

In addition, my guides point out that this time of year the veil between worlds is the thinnest. If you want to learn to connect with the unseen world in some way, be it through dreams, shamanic journey, intuition or some other means, now is an especially good time. Because the barriers between worlds are at the thinnest, it’s much easier to connect and see into the magical and spiritual worlds. It is also a good time to communicate your desires, dreams, and manifestation list to spirit. Write down all the things you want to bring into your life or release from your life then go outside after dark and burn the paper. Watch and intent the smoke to carry your desires to your guides and to the universe.

Energetic Replenishing and Shielding- Sept 2006

This month the guides showed me opening a plain white door and stepping through it into an outside world of incredible natural beauty. The message is simple: Go outside, walk out of your home, office or car and spend some time being in nature, paying attention to the beauty. Spending time outside allows our personal magnetic field to align with the magnetic field of the earth. This gives us the ability to take in and be nurtured by earth energy.

With some of the challenging astrological aspects and energetic shifts, humanity has experienced a lot of stress lately. We’ve had many of our unresolved shadows- anger, fear, sadness, feelings of powerlessness, etc. stirred up for healing and release. Now is a time to replenish our energy. Time outside is one of the best ways to do this.

Another good way to replenish your energy is to create an energetic cocoon when you sleep. You can visualize yourself surrounded in golden energy or white light. You can ask your guides to wrap you in energy. This creates a psychically quiet, nurturing and restful space. With all the intense energy and human stress, energetically sensitive people have felt bombarded. This cocoon provides a break and a filter so that you’re not processing other people’s stress in your sleep.

Finally, my guides are recommending implementing multilayered shields or boundaries to command the energy of your personal space. Start with a bubble of energy or light around your body and immediate aura. Then visualize a second one- around your car, at the walls of your home, around your workspace. This multilayered approach is a good way to filter out other peoples stress and fear. Many of us work to transmute humanity’s stress and fear and anger. However, we don’t have to feel it in order to transmute it. Set the intent that your bubble act as a conduit taking stress energy that contacts the bubble (from you or from the world around you) up to the sun to be recycled and transmuted. That way you can still transmute the energy that comes to you, without having to feel it and bring it through your own energy field.

Releasing and Manifesting- Aug 2006

My guides are showing that it’s a time of release. Imagine a torrent of water washing over you, clearing away all the stagnant, stuck energy. This cleansing and clearing can be helped by using actual water. They recommend sitting down in the shower and letting the water run over your head and body. This is a different energy than either a bath or a normal shower, it allows for a surrender and gives your body the cue that it’s time to let go. This is particularly powerful when feeling overwhelming emotions such as grief or despair. You can allow yourself to release control and let your emotions flow.

They also say that it is a time when we’re doing a lot of work in our sleep. The dreamwork that we’re doing now is very powerful. However, you may wake up tired even when you’ve had your normal amount of sleep. See if you can allow extra hours of sleep right now.

Finally, they are showing me that there’s an activation available for our hands. To invoke this, hold up your hands and ask your guides to activate them. This download or activation will help you to bring in new energy through your hands as old energy is cleared away. Primarily, however, it is about strengthening our ability to move vision and energy from the spirit world into the physical. This will be powerful in manifesting your dreams and desires.

How to Thrive in Changing Times- July 2006

This month I’m including two messages from my guides. The first I journeyed on for this newsletter. The second is one I journeyed on for another list. Since they speak to similar things, I decided to include both.

Play
This month the message is about play, preferably the kind of play that a child between the ages of 4 and 9 would find amusing (video games and TV not included). The energy of change going on right now looks like a storm, churning and flowing and sweeping up and spinning the people who are trying to process, deal with, or work through it in some way. The guides say that the shifting energies are just too big and chaotic for us to logically or individually address. They strongly recommend not taking the shifts and stresses in the world so personally. Big changes are simply happening.

By giving ourselves a play break, we become untouched by the stress of the world and able to ground and find our center. It’s as though all the shifts and storminess are happening about chest level and above. If we sit down on the floor and play, the energy of the storm blows right over us without impacting us at all.

In addition, this play break let’s the conscious mind have some time off, allowing other unconscious abilities, aspects and skills to develop. As the world shifts, many of us are finding our gifts of intuition, healing, and other spiritual abilities are getting stronger. When we make time to play like a child, those abilities are strengthened and developed.

How to Flourish in Changing Times

The world is going through great transformation. The vibration is speeding up and all our old wounds and dark stagnate energy are being shaken away very quickly. In this time of great change it can feel hard to find stable ground. Relationships, jobs, worldviews, everything that no longer serves us is falling away rapidly. In the past, we’ve tended to anchor ourselves in the world around us- the house we own, our romantic relationship, our financial security, our religion or spiritual practice.

Among my clients, I am seeing many people at cross-roads in their lives. Jobs are going away, people are moving, long-term relationships are ending, new relationships are beginning, family members are dying.

So, when I asked my guides for a message for the San Diego Circle, they choose to speak to how to flourish in this energy. Their suggestion is to give up the idea of anchoring ourselves in something external that we require to be unchanging. We are aware of too much change to be able to make ourselves feel safe with our money, relationships, or jobs.

Instead, they say to anchor ourselves in our passions. By finding the things we love and physically expressing that love in some way, we connect ourselves into the world and into our own lives in a powerful, joyful way. Yes, the world around us will still be changing. But by staying in touch with what we love most deeply and making time and space to connect with it on a regular basis, the shifts and changes in the world won’t feel so overwhelming. It’s like the difference between being out in an icy storm versus watching the same storm through a window, while curled up by a fire with a cup of hot chocolate.

When it comes to the passion my guides speak of, they are not talking exclusively or even primarily of your life purpose or soul work. They are speaking merely of the things you love and that make you happy. If you love walking in nature, sailing on a boat, or spending time with a friend, these are perfect. It should be the things that make your heart deeply happy. While these can be things that are spiritual, they don’t have to be. Focusing for a few minutes on your passion for the good cup of coffee in front of you is a way to apply this principle.

Downloading Past Life Mastery- June 2006

Right now the barriers dividing us from other lifetimes are getting thinner. We are feeling the impact of past lifetimes more vividly than in other lifetimes. This gives us a chance to heal and release old wounds from other lifetimes. We tend to focus on the negative lifetimes, the unhealed things, which is good. However, there is an equally strong opportunity to activate the positive experiences. We can use this thinness to remember and activate the healing abilities we’ve mastered in other lifetimes. We can pull forward the energetic experience of what it was like in a lifetime when we had a deeply satisfying partnership and activate the energy that made it work. We can activate cellular memory from other lifetimes of dancing, running, or other physical activities. In addition, we can ask our body to remember and activate the experience of a time before a certain kind of trauma happened, when we felt secure, unafraid, and adaptable.

To download into your current reality something from another lifetime, start by clearly defining what you want. Ask that only the positive aspects of the experience be activated and anything that was not positive be released. Ask that you also remember the positive lessons learned from those experiences. Pick a time when you feel relaxed and centered and have some uninterrupted time. Take a few deep breaths, then ask that the mastery, knowledge, or cellular memory from all the other lifetimes that fit your intent be activated in your energy field and body.

For example, you might ask that the body knowing from all the lifetimes that you danced be activated in your body and that you want only the joyful, empowering experiences to be accessed. You would ask that your body remember all the positive things it knew about dancing and movement. Then, when you went to take a dance class, you might find that you learned far more quickly than you would have without this download.

If you find that you want some help with downloading something specific, please consider a one issue shamanic reading. I can download the energy, provide more insight into where you’ve used it before, and remove any energetic barriers to fully accessing it.

New Cycle of Manifestation- May 2006

My guides say that we are entering a time with great scope for creation, manifestation and new possibilities. Many people have been in an internal process these last months and now the energy is shifting such that we can begin to apply our energies into the outside world again.

As we move into external endeavors and manifesting, we need to be mindful that we don’t go back to the last time we were in this energy and pick up the old habits and approaches that we used before. We’ve gone through a great clearing and growth cycle and now have the opportunity to create and manifest in new ways, more powerfully and without losing our connection to ourselves. The guides say as you launch yourself into a new endeavor, learn to bring your attention back and forth, focusing outward on what you are creating or doing, then bringing your attention back to yourself to check whether you’re still centered, quiet within yourself, and grounded. This process of checking in with yourself as you go will allow you to bring vastly more power, focus, and skill to your manifestation in the external world.

Commanding your Personal Space- March 2006

For this month, the message from my guides relates to commanding your personal space. They invite you to create or visualize a circle around you. It should be an area that is yours alone, so in a public place it might extend only as far as your personal space. If you live alone, it might be your entire home. However big or small, they recommend asking your guides to hold this space so that the area inside it is calm and clear and free of other, uninvited energy. Right now is a time of great transformation. It’s helpful to create your own space so that you’re not feeling other people’s stuff.

Within this protected, energetically calm circle or sphere, they invite you to be with whatever feelings or experiences are coming up for you. You can be calm and centered while the world around you is chaotic. You can also use this space to fall apart, throw a tantrum or curl up like a little child. It’s a place to be divinely held and protected in your own perfect process, whatever that may be. This is a way to create safe space for yourself with your intent, regardless of what is going on around you.